Reality Show Opportunity: Not Keeping Up with the Kardashians

Backstory: We bought a house in New Orleans in Spring 2013, using a small inheritance from Mr FS's parents. The house is a rental, occupied by Frugal Son (in the tiny room with no closet) and two other fellows, one of whom does occasional work in the tv biz.

New Story: Roommate with occasional work in tv biz meets someone who does reality show featuring Amish carpenters. That someone's interest is piqued by three 20-something fellows with a big screened porch. They are thinking of building a bar on it.

Of course, I would prefer a bathroom remodel (the house needs it). Or how about....oh, zillions of things.

Frugal Son and his roomies seem a bit interested. They would hang out with the carpenters and that would be filmed too.

If an offer comes through, should Mr FS and I say OK if the fellows want to do it? Or are there a million unforeseen bad consequences I'm not thinking of?

Multi-Generational Housing? Retirement?

I guess I never told you that we were going to Florida. Well, we're back, and Miss Em is off to her next adventure.

I'm in the waning days of my vacation, and love nothing more than curling up with a good book. FROM THE LIBRARY. Everyone knows that is a key part of Frugality 101: use the library.

One book I'm reading and loving is this.

Yes, I am thinking about multi-generational housing.

Every few days, it seems, there is some article on the increase in multi-generational housing brought on by the financial meltdown, We hear of college grads or young adults moving in with parents; parents moving in with kids; the middle-aged moving in with even older parents; or the same older parents moving in with their middle-aged kids. This is always presented as some dire necessity,* to be escaped from ASAP.

The parents of the baby boomers are especially horrified at the prospect. My mother--aged 81--was talking about assisted living, and I suggested she move in with us if she needed extra care. She said, "That is the cruelest thing anyone has ever said to me." I didn't mean it that way! I thought I was nice.

Anyway, the dire articles always have zillions of comments, most, like my mother, horrified. Then there are those, mostly of Asian descent, who say: That's how we do it! Some point out that college grads who do that can save up for a house. The elderly can hang with their grandchildren and children. Multi-generational housing is presented as positive--something that can be pro-active, rather than simple re-active to economic or other emergency.

That last has been especially on my mind. Instead of a few intense (and not always in a good way) visits to relatives, wouldn't it be nice to have a more low-key relationship--every now and again, for a short time?

The book pictured above shows many ingenious transformations of houses (and not Mcmansions) to accommodate more than one family, with opportunities for togetherness and lots of privacy. I've already figured out how my 2000 square foot house with small back building could accommodate not one, but two families in addition to Mr FS and me.

Food for thought. What do you think of the issue of multi-generational housing?

*After writing dire necessity, I knew it was from somewhere. It is: Milton's Samson Agonistes. This tells of Samson's death, when he pulls the walls of the temple down, killing the Philistines and himself.

O dearly-bought revenge, yet glorious!
Living or dying thou hast fulfill'd
The work for which thou wast foretold
To Israel, and now ly'st victorious
Among thy slain self-kill'd
Not willingly, but tangl'd in the fold
Of dire necessity

What is Middle-Class Anyway? Bathroom Edition

If you have not already, head over to Passage des Perles and read the post and comments on this vexed issue. I have been thinking about all this since we got to Europe. Here we are in a town near Nantes, thanks to the generosity of one of Frugal Son's teachers. She and her husband are spending 5 weeks in Sri Lanka. They spent 5 weeks in China last year. Middle-class? Higher?

I have, as readers may know, been whining about my tiny, tiny bathrooms. Here we are, in a small house with four bedrooms. Upstairs, through one of the bedrooms, is a tiny bathroom. It contains a tiny shower and a tiny sink. No toilet.

Where is the toilet? Downstairs, in a tiny cubicle with no sink. That's the bathroom situation.

Mr FS and I have been amusing ourselves, imagining the responses of our middle-class parents to the bathroom situation. They--and most other middle-class Americans--would find the bathroom components ludicrous, unacceptable.

All I know is that I am re-thinking my renovation plans. A definite downsizing of what I thought of as frugal plans!

Paint Colors and the Quest for Frugal Beauty

What with root canals, taxes (oops), and packing, my head is spinning. Mr. FS is doing some interior painting also.

Here are the colors we're using. The 2 front rooms of our house were painted a beautiful terracotta when we moved in. We would have been too chicken to stray from white, but we learned that terracotta goes with everything. Frugal Son is having a minor crisis over any change; Mr FS is apprehensive, and I am too--a little--but I think we need to step out of the terracotta comfort zone.

The entry way and study will remain terracotta. The entry will turn to a deeper tone: Sherwin Williams REDDISH.

That's not the bold move. Susan-the-color-expert suggested blue for the living room. She picked out the tiniest bit of blue from my grandmother's little Oriental rug and this is what we have: Benjamin Moore JAMESTOWN BLUE.

Oh, I feel like J. Alfred Prufrock: Do I dare/Disturb the universe? But J Alfred (I just re-read that poem after 20 or so years) is a big baby. I'll be like Britomart instead. Over the doorways (how appropriate!) in the House of Busirane (a very bad place, Faerie Queene Book 3) are the words Be bold, be bold. Of course, Britomart also sees the words Be not too bold.

I don't think I need to worry about that. My quest for beauty is not in the same league as Britomart's quest in Book 3, which culminates in the rescue of Amoret from the magician Busirane.

What's been your boldest move in the quest for beauty?

Inspiration: Frugality and Aesthetics

As I pore through books and magazines thinking about my various house projects, I realize how seldom one sees a middle-class house done with a middle-class budget.

My dream bathroom would be an original from the 1930s or 40s rescued from a house about to undergo renovation. I have two friends with original bathrooms and I am so jealous. The funny thing is that they are indifferent and I think at least one would renovate extensively if money were no object.

One source of inspiration for me is Mary Cooper, a New Orleans chair caner who now is a color consultant. Check out her beautiful house. Anyone can paint a room turquoise.

Her dining room is even featured in a fancy coffee table book. There it sits, a humble space amid many rooms decorated by the eminent for the rich and famous.

My mother-in-law had a small, beautiful, and eccentric garden in Pasadena. It was so beautiful that it was featured in a book. Like Mary Cooper's dining room, Virginia's garden is humble in origin: it is the only one created and maintained by a homeowner. All others were designed--or at least maintained--by a squadron of gardeners. Some, of course, are public gardens.


Do you have any humble spots of beauty?

Frugal Bathroom Remodel: Aesthetics vs Frugality

Still in the thinking stage. We had our kitchen contractor out for a look-see. He liked my idea: to add on to the larger of our two inadequate bathrooms by bumping out another small space. This would lead to a two-part room, with a sink in the entry space and the bath and toilet in the new space. Plus we could put in a little storage space. The current space does not have room for a towel rack.

The bid wasn't too bad. We could do it. And maybe we will. But then I realized how we could bump out the other bathroom and put in a tub. The current shower--which probably cost under $100, I kid you not--is tiny and the cheapest plastique. Mr. FS won't even use it and he's on the thin side. Anyway, that shower could be removed and turned into a closet! Mr. FS estimates that the cost would be around 40% of the other plan.

As usual, I start out by trying to do the conventional thing, but then my frugality comes up against the norm. That is why I don't have a backsplash in my kitchen (I don't like them and they are expensive). In spite of dire predictions, the wall looks fine.

The contractor said that we would need a tub surround and that decent quality surrounds cost about $1000 for material plus labor. Tiling--the beautiful solution--is much more expensive. Oh no! I don't want that ugly surround! I also don't want expensive tilework.

I know! Let's put in a tub with no shower--or a little hand shower.

So the combination of my aesthetics and my frugality is going to lead--once more--to a choice that will mystify others. I love my kitchen, which satisfied both aesthetics and frugality, but my sister-in-law, extremely conventional, said, when I showed her pictures, "OK, so where are the AFTER PICTURES?"

Here's what I'm reading.

Any words of wisdom?

Does Remodeling Increase Your Home's Value?

Good question. I don't know the answer. During the housing bubble, common wisdom was that YES it did and, besides, it was basically free cuz you could borrow from your home's appreciation. We all know where those ideas ended up.

1. APPRECIATION. I have seen two homes in my neighborhood undergo extensive renovation. Medium-sized cottages like my own were spiffed up, with many magazine-worthy details. Both homes were put on the market shortly after renovation. There were not flippers, but people who changed their minds about where they wanted to live. Both sold. Did the owners get back their money? I don't know. In any case, I don't plan to put $200,000-$300,000 to the test to find out.

2. NOT DEPRECIATING. I had a colleague with an under-employed husband and scads of kids. When he got a job, they relocated. Their house was on the lower-end of the market. Nevertheless, their real estate agent told them to carpet the hideous patterned linoleum. She said that NOT putting in the money would mean a $10,000 lower asking price. Too bad my colleague didn't get to enjoy the new flooring for a while.

I think my bathrooms are in the second category: they are so tiny, have so little storage (none), and have such ugly bathing facilities that they would LOWER the price of my house. Most buyers would tear them out immediately. Most owners with the tolerance of normal people would have fixed things up about 10-15 years ago.

However, I have to be careful not to over-improve because I don't plan to move any time soon. The latest thing won't be the latest in ten years.

On the plus side, materials costs have gone down with the bursting of the real estate bubble.

Any thoughts on this tricky issue?

Help me with a Remodeling Issue

Soooooo. We called the contractor who did our modest kitchen remodel. He came over right on time and said my mad idea would work. And, while it would be expensive for a cheapo like me, it would be modest in the grand scheme of the bathroom remodel.

However, since the mad idea involves a bump-out of the existing bathroom, we need to call in an architect to do pictures for a permit.

How to pick an architect? Well, we once used an eminent local fellow, who overcharged us so much (he billed us for thirty hours of drawing a complete scale model of our house including all furniture!! all for a rectangular addition off the side of the house) that we would never use him again. Note: when we protested, he reduced the bill by half within 10 seconds. Not enough though.

Then there are other locals who are connected in one way or another. Problem is that even though these fellows look good (starched shirts and khakis--same as eminent fellow above) and have attractive websites, I've seen some of the awful things they have done: huge houses with no light, a beautiful old cottage like mine with a large hideous excrescence (aka double garage) hanging off the side, etc. I called one of these guys in for a consultation (after speaking to eminent architect above) and he suggested the same thing Mr. FS thought of and rejected as too ugly and ungainly!

We asked wonderful contractor for a recommendation and were happy to take the name. Then I looked at the guy's website.

Would you hire an architect who presented himself to the public this way?

Any suggestions?



An even more eminent architect than the vile one above has a beautiful office downtown. His name is Ken Tate and he has been in Architectural Digest.